For functional strength, they really have no role. In 8 years of daily work involving loads of physical labor, I have woken up with a sore back, sore legs, sore shoulders, but never ever felt like the ol' pecs had been worked hard. Now bodybuilders need a big chest, but they get graded exclusively on how they look and that's the standard so that's what they train.

When Jesse Marunde (World's Strongest Man competitor) was alive, he had a strength competition web site and the members all agreed that the #1 most aggravating question the faced at the gym was "What do you bench? What!? You don't bench?"

In the course of living, do you ever use your chest muscles? Pushing a stalled car out of the garage? That's really more leg and shoulders.